"Well, Mr. Webster, and I'm sure we thank you kindly and know it's well and neighbourly meant, and only what we should have looked for from you, Mr. Webster,--Mr. Webster says folk are talking about you, Ben, and that our house, this very house I were born an' bred in, is known an' watched for a meeting place of th' Luddites. Mr. Webster says he's had a hint or two from more nor one that's like to know 'at would be sorry to see a decent family that always held its head up an' paid its way, brought to trouble and maybe disgrace by carryings on that's agen the law an' cannot be justified. But there, Mr. Webster, aw'm a poor talker, tell him yersen, an' let him answer yo' if he can." "I'm' not at liberty to say who my informant was, Ben," said Mr. Webster. "But briefly the matter is this. One of my deacons"... My thoughts flew, I know not why, to Buck Walker, Ben's father--"asked me privately this morning if I knew whether it was true, that you and George Mellor were strongly suspected of being of the party that broke into Mr. S----'s mill at Marsh. And others, too, have hinted at the same thing, and one of my brothers who labours in the Lord's vineyard at Milnsbridge says that it is common talk in those parts that George Mellor and his cousin from Slaithwaite way are the head and front of the grave doings that now distract the country and add crime and violence to poverty and hunger." "Drat that George Mellor, that ever I should live to say so of my sister's son. And him coming here so much of late and making him welcome to the best of everything, nothing too good for him, and couldn't be more done by if he were my own son. As is nothing but right by your own sister's son, and him wi' a stepfather that would aggravate a saint. Who'd ha thowt it o' George, leading yar Ben, that wouldn't harm a flea an' scarce pluck to say boo to a goose, into all maks o' mullock, an' dragging decent women out of their bed by th' hair o' th' head, an' goodness only knows what beside. But I'll lock thee in this very night wi' mi own hands, and out o' this house tha doesn't stir fra sunset to sunrise, or my name's not Sarah Bamforth. An' let George show his face here again if he dare. An' so nicely as I had it all planned out too. Aw made no doubt he wer' companying that pale faced lass o' Parson Booth's, an' a rare catch for her aw thowt it would be to have a fine, handsome, well-set-up young man i' th' family that would bring some blood an' bone into th' breed, as it's easy to see their father's had all run to furin gibberish an' book learning, so at he'd none to give his own childer, poor warmbly things." Thus my mother. "Well, Ben, has ta nowt to say for thissen?" said my father, not angrily, but with an unspoken reproach in his voice: and my conscience smote me sore.